The Summer Studio is coming to Alpaca!
Team Letter | February 24, 2025
February 24, 2025
Alpaca, this is BIG!!
I am so proud and excited to share with you that Alpaca has been selected as the project partner for The Summer Studio, a unique opportunity for Alpaca to design and build something transformational for our business, with the foremost leaders in the design field.
So, why are we doing this?
In short — because if we’re going to build new solutions in education, we can’t rely on old thinking.
In the past two years, I’ve gotten a lot of advice in my role — and a lot of it is about what “never works in education” or “the game you have to play if you’re selling to school districts.”
I appreciate the hard earned lessons learned from the field, but I respectfully submit this: “what got us here won’t get us there.” To do something big for teacher wellbeing, we’ll have to think differently. I believe it to my core.
For that reason, I’m always excited when we have the opportunity to get more minds in the room. And The Summer Studio is the chance to get extraordinary design leaders in the room, using a unique methodology, to help us think differently about our customer and our product, and design something extraordinary.
Wait, what “methodology?”
If you’re not familiar with Human Centered Design (or as some will say, “Design thinking”), the idea is to design new solutions to big problems by understanding the people you’re trying to support. Understanding the people — that seems like a reasonably good idea, right? It’s a simple concept, but it’s often not easy. And those who have perfected it have designed the products you and I use each and every day — whether you know it or not!
I’ve nerded out about Human Centered Design ever since I watched this segment about Ideo, one of the earliest leaders in the space. (Friends, we’re not going to talk about how many of you were not born when this aired. We aren’t.)
I love this methodology because it asks us to set down our assumptions about what we think we need to build, what we think is most important, what we think is challenging, and asks us to LISTEN deeply and then engage in an experience that is, as The Summer Studio puts it:
”Experiential, intensive, impactful, and joyful. Like all learning should be.”
I love the idea that our company’s solutions will be shaped by an experience that is deeply rooted in LISTENING and LEARNING.
So, starting this week with The Summer Studio’s visit to Omaha, and continuing this May, Alpaca is going to listen to our customers and end users in brand new ways, and then design solutions that are deeply rooted in the humans that will use them each and every day.
For this week, my only ask is this: I invite you to show your comfort zone the door! Set down your phones and task lists, lean into TSS’s process, and listen carefully. Let this team ask us the big questions, welcome them to question our answers, and choose the opportunities for curiosity. I am certain we will come up with something brilliant together.
And if you need something to do on your morning run or your kids’ naptime, think about (and write down!) any time you’ve ever heard a principal or school leader or district team member say to you — “The problem is…”
Ready to think big? I know you are. I am too. Put on your thinking caps. We’ve got big things to do.
KB
PS: This week we’re ALSO going to ship thousands of packs, launch a new website, attend education events, close our funding round, and close some deals. Just those things. LFG!
PPS: For further nerding out, start here:
What is Design Thinking (from Ideo)
The Power of Design (from NPR)
Why Social Innovators Need Design Thinking (from Stanford Social Innovation Review)
For more information about what The Summer Studio has created, start here:
If you want to see the full process that The Summer Studio used with KUT (Austin’s public radio station) in their project last summer, check out their case study here.